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Many West African countries face the challenge of growth inclusiveness. The region is also facing challenges of equipping its teeming population with high-quality skills despite many reforms and initiatives introduced in the past. This study, thus, identifies education as a crucial contributory factor to growth inclusiveness in the region. It, therefore, examined the role of education in growth inclusiveness in West Africa between 1990 and 2017.

The study utilised different proxies to capture quantity and quality dimensions of education. The unit root and ARDL “Bounds” tests were employed at a preliminary stage. Based on the preliminary tests, the study explored autoregressive distributed lags modelling technique to capture the short-run and long-run dynamic effects.

The empirical results reveal a positive impact of school enrolment measures in most of the countries in both short-run and long-run. Education quality measure exerts positive impact and significant in few countries under consideration.

These countries should give adequate attention to quality when designing education policy to foster their inclusive growth.

This study highlights the critical role of education in the inclusive growth pursuit. Education quantity is important to growth inclusiveness but the quality of education is more fundamental. The quality of education possessed determine to a large extent, what individual can contribute to the productive activities within the economy and accessibility to benefits from economic prosperity.

Gluten-free (GF) foods have gained momentum among consumers due to an increase in incidence and awareness of gluten sensitivity and intolerance. Millet is a GF grain with nutritive qualities comparable to other cereals. However, it was not clear how millet-based GF products would be accepted, leading to the goal of this research. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of formulation on physical properties and consumer preference of millet-based GF bread.

Three bread formulations were used: proso millet flour (100 percent), proso millet flour–corn starch (1:1), and proso millet flour–potato starch (1:1). Physical and sensory properties were statistically evaluated.

Starch addition to the bread formulation had a significant influence on bread volume, color and firmness. A consumer’s age, gluten intolerance and familiarity with millet products did influence the frequency of consumption of GF products. Gluten-intolerant panelists consumed GF products more often than others who are not. Older panelists reported consuming more GF products than younger panelists. Gender also had a significant effect on consumers’ preference for overall acceptability and crumb aroma. The formulation had a significant effect on consumers’ preference of crust color and crumb aroma.

The paper presents an understanding of how starch addition modulates bread properties for the GF market.

In this paper, the authors explored a novel approach to use different starches and proso millet for making GF bread and determined sensory responses based on demographics like age, celiac diagnosis and familiarity with GF foods. This vital information will help processors to determine the portion of the market to target and the formulation to explore further.

Public sector management education in the developing countries of the third world is focused on with regard to the situtation in Nigeria. The efforts and potential of a particular management training institution, the Faculty of Administration at Obafemi Awolowo University, are reviewed, first by tracing the development of its management training programmes and then outlining the current courses and activities. An assessment is made of the institution′s programmes as a credible management training response to the particular problems it faces in the current African situation, and it is found that the institution may not fully appreciate the new role‐expectations built around it as detailed in The World Bank report (1987) on management training for African development. Recommendations are given for African training institutions in general: future policy cannot exclude the reality of the particular country′s economic situation; existing personnel must be encouraged to specialise; there must be flexible arrangements for teaching and consultancy; adequate resources must be available; and there must be a fundamental change in the philosophy of the training institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effects of cement‐ and earth‐plastered straw bale walls against the appropriate vertical loads.

The effects of contact between two common types of plasters and the stacked straw bale by the optimal design analysis have been assessed in this work with the use of finite element method.

Cement‐ and earth‐plastered straw bale walls have shown adequate resistance against the appropriate vertical loads and showed that the earth‐plaster can bear higher stress than the cement plastered straw bale. There is the implication that the collapse or response of the earth‐straw bale wall will be significantly higher compared to that of cement‐straw bale wall.

The stress stability obtained of the analytical walls is adequate after using the best fit variables for the wall height and thickness.

The paper shows that the allowable stresses of 70.14 kN/m² for cement plastered straw bale wall and 73.14 kN/m² for earth‐plastered straw bale wall are higher than the calculated stress values using SAP2000 of 18.836 and 64.2 kN/m² for cement plastered straw bale wall, respectively.

Evidence reported by Geczy, Minton and Schrand (1997) showed that foreign exchange risk had a significant influence on the use of currency derivatives but that interest cover and financial leverage did not. In this study, we suggest that the reason why foreign exchange risk was significant but interest cover and financial leverage were not significant in the evidence was because currency derivatives were used to measure the dependent variable. We verify the validity of this suggestion by testing the influence of interest cover and financial leverage on the use of interest rate derivatives. Our sample comprises 140 firms in the UK, 48 of which use interest rate derivatives. Evidence observed shows that interest cover and financial leverage have a significant influence on the use of interest rate derivatives and that foreign exchange risk does not. We also compare the previous evidence referred to above with our results to determine whether there is a difference between the factors that motivate firms to use currency derivatives or interest rate derivatives. The result of the comparison indicates that dependence on overseas product and capital markets, tax, institutional shareholding and economies of scale are the factors that motivate firms to use currency derivatives. The result also indicates that high interest cover (i.e. interest/profit before interest and tax)or total debt ratio, economies of scale and directors’ shareholding are the factors that motivate firms to use interest rate derivatives.

Participatory design strategy through post-occupancy evaluation of built assets is a feedback mechanism into the design process. This paper draws upon a wider empirical study that aims at evaluating the University Campus Open Spaces (UCOS) of six federal universities in South-west Nigeria. The purpose of this paper is to generate evidence-based design toolkits for UCOS towards spanning of disconnects between designers and users thereby revisiting and revitalizing their design criteria.

A sample (n=3,016) of users was drawn in a cross-sectional survey through stratified random method. The research instrument was a structured questionnaire in multiple choice and Likert-type scales. The data obtained were subjected to statistical techniques.

Results show that males use the UCOS for active and passive recreation than females. The UCOS are male dominated because the females have higher concerns for lack of safety and inclement weather. Both genders have equal preference for sitting. “Group academic” activities are at peak in the “afternoon”, while “being alone” takes place in the “evening” and “personal academic” in the “morning”. Safety is primary to zoological and botanical gardens. Social interaction spaces enhance successful recreation parks. Coherence and legibility are the highest cognitive satisfaction factors for pedestrian sidewalks.

The research generated design requirements for UCOS, and it is important for informing better design solutions in the future.

The results are synthesized into three-in-two new frameworks to guide future design actions for innovative strategies between design and use/operational phases.

The poor outdoor quality of highly populated third-world cities is a consequence of the misuse of public open spaces as refuse dumps and for informal trading activities. This describes the situation of Lagos metropolis before the present political will that has infused great landscaping transition into the cityscape. However, the challenges of maintenance are germane to the sustainability of these landscape products. The purpose of this paper is to assess the quality and characteristics of the landscapes that have undergone transition and to formulate a framework for maintenance strategies.

The study objectively evaluates the physical qualities of 22 randomly selected sites that have undergone transition through on-site assessment and photographic recording. The management regimes were subjectively studied to appraise the level of their effectiveness and to guide future strategies. This was carried out by collecting the opinions of 130 selected government officials in charge of maintaining the spaces with the aid an interview guide.

Analyses of the data revealed rich values of the landscapes and management strategies in favour of a public-private partnership. It recommends public open space transformation for recreational activities in cities as a vital means of enhancing urban living and city outlooks.

The study concludes with formulation of sustainable management framework for the landscapes and argues in its favour. It thus has policy implications on the maintenance of urban open spaces that have undergone transition in Lagos and Nigeria at large.

The study was carried out in May 2011. Its significance lies in its capacity of enhancing the quality of urban open spaces through appropriate policy formulation of management regimes.

Although social media has gained prominence as a communication and marketing tool in various sectors, its adoption and utilization within the construction industry remain relatively underexplored. Therefore, this study fills this gap by evaluating the level of awareness and the extent of adoption of social media within the Nigerian construction industry, shedding light on its current status and potential impact.

This objective was attained via a quantitative research approach that utilized a structured questionnaire to obtain responses from construction professionals such as architects, builders, engineers, quantity surveyors and estate managers. Frequencies and percentages and the mean item score (MIS) were used to analyze the questionnaire responses and assess the overall awareness and adoption of social media among construction professionals. Additionally, the Kruskal–Wallis H-test provided valuable insights into the variations in social media adoption levels among different professional categories within the construction industry.

The results indicate that construction professionals possess a generally high level of awareness regarding various social media platforms. However, despite this awareness, the extent of adoption does not align with the level of awareness, suggesting that adoption rates are not as widespread as anticipated.

The findings of this study underscore the importance of not just awareness but also effective adoption and utilization of social media platforms. While awareness is a crucial first step, construction firms should focus on implementing strategies to encourage greater adoption and integration of these platforms into their daily operations. This can go a long way in bridging the awareness – adoption gap which was revealed in this study.

While the limited existing research on social media in the construction industry has predominantly concentrated on areas such as marketing, addressing the root causes of fatalities, data environment tools and business branding, none have undertaken a thorough evaluation of social media awareness and adoption within the sector. This study fills a critical gap by narrowing its focus to the adoption dynamics and the technology’s potential impact on communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing among construction professionals.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether current account imbalances – surpluses or deficits – are “excessive” and hence constitute a valid concern. The second objective is to assess the degree of capital mobility by comparing the variance of the current account derived from the intertemporal model with that of the actual current account.

The paper addresses the issues by constructing the intertemporal model using annual data between 1960 and 2006. The authors applied the F‐test, the Bartlett test and the Siegel‐Tukey test to formally validate for equality of the variances of the optimal and actual consumption smoothing current accounts.

Based on vector autoregressive model, it was found that the present value of future net output closely reflects the evolution of the current account series with a small (insignificant) deviation between the actual and the estimated consumption‐smoothing current account. The results show that the hypothesis of full‐consumption smoothing could not be rejected by the data for the full sample period, implying that the degree of capital mobility was quite high, even during the post‐1997 period. The variance ratio of the actual current account to the optimal current account is not statistically greater than one. Therefore, it is concluded that there is no evidence to suggest inappropriate use of capital flows over the entire sample period under investigation.

The authors relied on a more general framework, as suggested by Bergin and Sheffrin, which allows real interest rate to affect current account in order to provide a new perspective on Thailand's current account balance.